Church of Saint Joseph

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Built around 1660, the current basilica layout with three naves and an underlying crypt dates back to the beginning of the following century, when Archpriest Baldassarre Amico had it rebuilt.

Chiesa di San Giuseppe

It was his successor, Isidoro Amico, who finally completed it. The façade is inspired by late Renaissance models and features a tribune portal flanked by two austere side portals with pediments, and a bell gable with two arches. The two concrete statues, the work of Giuseppe Emma senior, were placed in 1930 and represent Saint Joseph on the right and Christ the King on the left. The interior barrel vault is adorned with graceful stucco decorations by Ferdinando and Filippo Rini, who in 1856 executed a design by Giuseppe Ottoveggio of Palermo, along with frescoes painted by the artist Emanuele Catanese from Gela between 1855 and 1856. The painter received a considerable sum, 64 onze, to fresco a cycle of the life of Saint Joseph and several Fathers of the Church in 10 large panels: 4 on the vault, 4 in the apse, 2 at the main entrance, and a medallion on the counter-façade depicting Pius IX, the only one unaffected by water infiltration or restoration. The two large panels near the church entrance were severely damaged by the construction, in the mid-20th century, of the choir loft where a small pipe organ by the Caltanissetta organ builder Pasquale Gueli is located. On the outer railing, four panels attract attention, depicting (from left) Saints Anthony of Padua, Cecilia, Gregory the Great, and Ambrose.

On the main altar stands the statue of Saint Joseph, by an unknown 18th-century Sicilian sculptor, and the Child Jesus, reinserted in 1908. The church was once administered by the Confraternity of Saint Joseph, which provided decent burials for the town’s poor and interred them in the now-inaccessible crypt. However, from Via Misteri it is still possible to access the space in front of the cemetery area, which preserves a well and elements of the ancient water collection and distribution system.

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